Posted:June 1, 2016

Squatty Potty and Millenials

Checking Out Where Things Sit from Upwind

I have distinct memories of drinking booze and swimming in the faculty pool, chasing out the National Guard, and facing Capt. Joel Honey in downtown Santa Barbara. UCSB and Isla Vista, over multiple occasions, were but one of many focal points for anti-war demonstrations during Vietnam. There was actually more than one summer of love, and it was hard to cut my hair. (It was even harder to grow a beard.) I even lived in a treehouse for a summer. My generation was politically active, engaged, high, and mostly free from STDs. Peace, love, dope.

We were empowered with new political and social consciences and better ideas and ideals than our parents. The whole materialistic thing was a drag. We were hip, we fed our heads, and we burned our tighty whiteys (or bras, depending). It seems so innocent now that we could actually stick out our thumbs and hitchhike across the country. Everything was actually pretty cool, except for crabs.

Then, this past Christmas, my kids and their partners (used to be what we called significant others), introduced my wife (partner) and me to a new perspective: Squatty Potty. We howled like hyenas watching the video, but it was only a laugh at that time.

Now, my kids (with their partners), all heading to get their medical degrees, and so should know something about bodily stuff, have raised again the better angle-of-attack of Squatty Potty. They are faithful adherents (or exherents, depending on your perspective). Only now the sentiment is not laughs; it is reverence. It turns out that my generation, and our parental generation of squares, and perhaps for generations, have not really known how to shit. We may have been wasting TP, too (but that is largely unspoken).

It was this second reference to Squatty Potty that caused me in repose to wonder: What was it with these millenials? Why aren’t they hip like we used to be? Why do I feel so constipated?

See, these millenials are constantly talking about local organic food, clean air, keeping the planet in balance, a clean colon. In just a generation, we have advanced from politics to emissions, global and personal. I actually think this is progress. We have embraced the global, but turned it inward. We can monitor our progress to a polyp-free alimentary canal!

So, there is a reason that Millenials have a smug look when you see them on the street. They know how to breathe, eat and shit like no generation before them. We have progressed as a society from one of ideas and political protest, to how to feed and void ourselves. Still, I think getting at the basics is a good idea. This generation coming down the chute knows what it takes to keep a clear pathway ahead.